Extending the Bush Tax Cuts

Seems like if these "Job Creators" were creating jobs (in the USA anyway) then they would not be making so much money that they would not worry about the taxes.

In other words, they would be hiring people to make them wealthy, instead of losing money to the tax man. Somehow this very simple truth is lost in the "logic" here. The "logic" that has shown job losses, not gains, since the tax cuts were enacted. We did however increase the National Debt by $trillions, so I guess that must go in the "win" column somehow.

It's a phucked up country when ideology wins out over reality. Heck, some people still think Reagan shrunk the government!!!!!!

:side:

The absolute most bizzare thing of all was watching Nancy Pelosi get excited and dance around after passing the Dream Act after pushing us down another $800bil hole.

A worthless and useless bunch of characters.

Hey Mike....you need to fire your accountant

"The Carnival Corporation wouldn’t have much of a business without help from various branches of the government. The United States Coast Guard keeps the seas safe for Carnival’s cruise ships. Customs officers make it possible for Carnival cruises to travel to other countries. State and local governments have built roads and bridges leading up to the ports where Carnival’s ships dock.

Thanks to an obscure loophole in the tax code, Carnival can legally avoid most taxes. But Carnival’s biggest government benefit of all may be the price it pays for many of those services. Over the last five years, the company has paid total corporate taxes — federal, state, local and foreign — equal to only 1.1 percent of its cumulative $11.3 billion in profits. Thanks to an obscure loophole in the tax code, Carnival can legally avoid most taxes.

It is an extreme case, but it’s hardly the only company that pays far less than the much-quoted federal corporate tax rate of 35 percent. Of the 500 big companies in the well-known Standard & Poor’s stock index, 115 paid a total corporate tax rate — both federal and otherwise — of less than 20 percent over the last five years, according to an analysis of company reports done for The New York Times by Capital IQ, a research firm. Thirty-nine of those companies paid a rate less than 10 percent.

Arguably, the United States now has a corporate tax code that’s the worst of all worlds. The official rate is higher than in almost any other country, which forces companies to devote enormous time and effort to finding loopholes. Yet the government raises less money in corporate taxes than it once did, because of all the loopholes that have been added in recent decades.

“A dirty little secret,” Richard Clarida, a Columbia University economist and former official in the Treasury Department under President George W. Bush, has said, “is that the corporate income tax used to raise a fair amount of revenue.” Over the last five years, on the other hand, Boeing paid a total tax rate of just 4.5 percent, according to Capital IQ. Southwest Airlines paid 6.3 percent. And the list goes on: Yahoo paid 7 percent; Prudential Financial, 7.6 percent; General Electric, 14.3 percent.

Economists have long pleaded for an overhaul of the corporate tax code, and both President Obama and Republicans now say they favor one, too. But it won’t be easy. Companies that use loopholes to avoid taxes don’t mind the current system, of course, and they have more than a few lobbyists at their disposal.

The official position of the Business Roundtable, one of the most important corporate lobbying groups, is telling. The Roundtable says it supports corporate tax reform. But it actually favors only a reduction in the tax rate. The group refuses to say whether it also favors a reduction of loopholes. In effect, the Roundtable wants a tax cut for its members regardless of how much the tax code is simplified — or whether the budget deficit grows.

•

The tax filings of companies, like those of individuals, are confidential. In their public reports to investors, however, companies are required to list something called “cash taxes paid” — the total amount of corporate income tax they paid that year, be it to foreign governments, the United States government or state and local governments.

This number varies significantly from year to year, depending on how many loopholes a company qualifies for. So looking at a single year’s number is often misleading. But in a 2008 academic paper, three accounting professors — Scott Dyreng of Duke, Michelle Hanlon of M.I.T. and Edward Maydew of the University of North Carolina — suggested a new method for analyzing corporate tax avoidance.

It compares cash taxes paid over several years — like five, as in the analysis for The Times — to pretax earnings over that same period. The accounting experts I interviewed called it the best available method for looking at corporate taxes.

Some obvious patterns emerge. Companies that lost large amounts of money in previous years can subtract these losses from their initial profits and avoid taxes until they’re turning a consistent profit. Yahoo falls into this category. Of all the reasons to have a low tax rate, this one may be the most defensible, economists say.

Other companies are able to avoid taxes by spending large sums on new equipment or buildings. Such spending can often be deducted. Southwest Airlines, for instance, has bought a lot of planes in the last five years. Several energy companies with tax rates below 2 percent, like NextEra, Xcel and Range Resources, have likewise been expanding.

A third group of companies simply seems to have become expert at avoiding taxes. When the three accounting professors analyzed more than 2,000 companies, they found big variations in tax rates within almost every subset of companies. Companies in the same industry often paid very different rates, even when they were similar in size.

G.E. is so good at it that some people consider its tax department to be the best in the world, even better than any law firm’s. One common strategy is maximizing the amount of profit that is officially earned in countries with low tax rates.

Carnival pays so little tax partly because of a provision that lets some shipping companies legally incorporated overseas (Panama, in Carnival’s case) avoid taxes. The fact that Carnival’s executives sit in Miami and or that many passengers board in Baltimore, Los Angeles, Miami, New York and Seattle doesn’t matter. Nor does the fact that Carnival isn’t paying much tax in Panama.

Companies that pay relatively high rates tend to be those that are not expanding rapidly and that are not as ingenious as G.E., at least on taxes. The average total tax rate for the 500 companies over the last five years — again, including federal, state, local and foreign corporate taxes — was 32.8 percent. Among those paying more than the average were Exxon Mobil, FedEx, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Starbucks, Wal-Mart and Walt Disney.

The problem with the current system is that it distorts incentives. Decisions that would otherwise be inefficient for a company — and that are indeed inefficient for the larger economy — can make sense when they bring a big tax break. “Companies should be making investments based on their commercial potential,” as Aswath Damodaran, a finance professor at New York University, says, “not for tax reasons.”

Instead, airlines sometimes buy more planes than they really need. Energy companies drill more holes. Drug companies conduct research with only marginal prospects of success.

Inefficiencies like these slow economic growth, and they are the reason that both conservatives and liberals criticize the corporate tax code so harshly. Mitch McConnell, the Republican Senate leader, says it hurts job creation. Mr. Obama, in his State of the Union address, said that the system “makes no sense, and it has to change.”

A lot of economists agree. Then again, any system that creates as many winners as this one won’t be changed easily

:lol:

That's funny Mike. And a great response egg.

They coulda, as Chuck notes re-phrased the question:

"Do you think the other guy does not pay enough taxes?" and gotten a similar numerical oddity, although the response might've been like ninety eight % think so :laugh:

This survey has been talked about for awhile now. Does anyone have the survey questions? A major difficulty in writing good survey questions is getting the wording right. Even slight wording differences can confuse the respondent or lead to incorrect interpretations of the question. The political bent of the respondent interpreting the questions adds to a possible misinterpretation. B) :) :) B) Deep Down In Florida Where The Sun Shines Damn Near Every Day

rotfl That's a good point.

Possibility number one: the 47% are too busy keeping their heads down and staying out of sight to get picked up for the survey.

Possibility number two: at most 12% of the people paying no tax believe it is a tax on them to share EIC payments with others.

Possibility number three: people buying dinner at convenience stores late at night feel they should not pay sales tax on beer and candy and microwave burritos.

Possibility number four: some of those surveyed think government's gone to the dogs and misheard the question as "Do you feel that you are Rover-taxed." (Oh yeah, defnitly defnitly KMart defnitly KMart)

Possibility number five: The population was larger on the last year data was available than it is now.

Possibility number six: They conducted the survey in front of the post office on April 15 and only questioned the ones who looked stressed.

Heard the following two statistics yesterday on the way home...

47% of the people paid no income tax in the last year data was available.

65% of people surveyed think they are over-taxed.

You do the math. LOL

Yeah Alba actually had a balanced budget until when? Oh about 2001, 2002 ? :laugh:

Fro an article on public pensions RE: New Jersey

"....This said, some union officials privately say that the teachers’ union, in its battle against cuts to salaries and benefits, misread Mr. Christie and the public temperament. Better to endorse a wage freeze, they say, than to argue that teachers should be held harmless against the economic storm.

In the past, union leaders, too, have proven adept at winning gains not just at the bargaining table. In 2000, union lobbyists persuaded legislators to cut five years off the retirement age for police and firefighters — a move criticized as a budget-buster by a state pension commission. The next year, the budget still was flush and union leaders persuaded the Republican dominated legislature to approve a 9 percent increase in pension benefits. (The legislators added a sweetener for their own pensions........."

And them Foxes are back guarding the Henhouse again... not even sworn in yet and already doing their part :woohoo:

Bill Clinton raised taxes and we still had an era of prosperity.

I love how the Ideologists always turn to Reagan to prove that a tax cut is the only economic tool the government needs to create jobs; Did the national debt really increase by 189% because of his policies?

I read about a flooring contractor in this area a week ago. His young son (less than 1 yr old) is going to die without surgery soon. Of course, this self employed "businessman" has no insurance for his family. Turns out the state will take care of the operation for his son.(Horrors! Death Panels!!) I don't know what happened with the roofers kid. I wonder: How many spaghetti suppers it takes to provide a $200,000 life saving surgical procedure?"

Not being a smart aleck at all here. I am truly curious: How many spaghetti suppers it takes to provide a $200,000 life saving surgical procedure?"

twill59 Said: Those who own their own small businesses have usually reached their peak earnings many years after having started their business, and often operating with very low income, or even operating at a loss, when their businesses first got started

Many people earning an annual income of $125,000 a year do so only after years of earning a lot less than that before eventually working their way up to that level. For politicians to step in at that point and confiscate what they have invested years of working to achieve is a little much

So........when these folks made much less, they paid much less in taxes. Or none. It has been stated over and over again. What did Mike H say? 1% of the people pay 50% of the taxes??? (Dont have the exact # in front of me) Is it really veiled rascism that only poor black folks pay no taxes, when in realty, struggling white businessmen, perhaps pay no taxes either? Help me out here.

So.....can anyone help me out here?

http://www.the-american-interest.com/article-bd.cfm?piece=907

Stephen,

You're a much smarter chap than you give yourself credit for, when you're trying to be smug. We both know it, and it's quite obvious in your writings. In fact, given the apparent interpretation of my posts, you're replies are a tad witty and thought provoking.

I will even agree whole heartedly with your last reply to me when you said I should not assume that the reader will interpret my "facts and figures" in the same manner. I'm certainly used to being both misunderstood, and thought an a**hole.

To the end of misunderstanding, I must say, that if you think the government is a more effective means of charity than is the conscience of men, then we will never agree on any of this, and we might as well part ways now agreeing to disagree. But I don't get that from the rest of your writings. Therefore, it dawns on me that when you write "I can only surmise that you are suffering to a small degree from a sense of entitlement..." either you are gravely misunderstanding me, or I am misunderstanding you. I willingly admit the latter is possible. If so, please be more specific.

And while I'm quoting you, let's be honest with each other. When you write "Mike, I hate to break it to you-but you aren't a "fat cat". No jab? No induendo?.... perhaps not, but it's certainly not an accurate quote of my meaning, that's for darn sure, because the use of the word "fat cats" in quotation marks was taken from twill, and his reference to those at the top income bracket. I do not consider myself a "fat cat" in any shape or form, unless we change the topic to one of healthy eating, but our government puts me in the top tax bracket, and those ARE the "fat cats" to whom twill was referring.

I do not feel that I am a victim, nor entitled to anything other than life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It is not the government's job to make any of us happy, they don't owe us our life, and aside from maintaining a standing army have no bearing on my liberty.

And upon reading "read your original post in this thread-or indeed any of your later posts. I am not seeing much "joy" in them. " Instead of furthering my assumptions, I will apologize and state unequivocably, you are wrong. While I have little joy over paying taxes, I am quite joyful that my company has survived another year, I made money, and therefore fall into the "pay" category. But I find no joy in the behemoth of our government, and resent deeply the waste and excessive taxation our elected officials have pushed upon us. However, since I believe your post was geared more toward my use of the word joy as it regards to charity, I think you have instead made a gross assumption, and request that if I'm wrong you would explain how so.

This thread, my replies to it, and my replies to you are not about ME, me, me, me. They are about the tyranny of our government, the war of the classes they promote within DC, the travesty that government wants to create followers instead of promoting doers, and the harness that our government places on givers of good things by taxing charitable gifts above a certain level. My money means very little to me. The good that it can do means very much, and a furthering of that topic must take place privately, should you so desire to know me better and gain any greater perspective on what I'm trying to say here.

May there be no doubt.... Joyful, I am, Pissed, I am too. They are not mutually exclusive to one another.

---I don't hate the gov't. ---Why do people always think it is all or nothing when it comes to gov't. It is BIG, OVER-REACHING, INTRUSIVE gov't that we decry. ---Gov't is there to provide services for the country. Gov't provides stability. Gov't enforces the rules that WE THE PEOPLE create. ---Gov't is like the referees at a football game. The referees do NOT make the rules. Rather they enforce the rules set by the teams. The referees should not give 10 points for a touchdown to weaker teams. Nor should the referees take away points from teams that are winning. Hard work and talent are ALWAYS rewarded on the scoreboard at a football game and so should they be in business. ---The gov't should not be telling when, how, if I can prune my roses. Gov't is far to big and far to costly. I don't advocate NO gov't. But you could cut the current gov't by 50% and do well. Why do we need military bases in over 170 countries??? I didn't even know there were that many countries! ---If you reward the unproductive and penalize the productive you will ruin an economy. ---Why do companies move overseas? Labor costs is the answer. I am currently being charged around $1.30 an hour for unemployment benefits. I have never had a claim but am still charged that much. Does that encourage me to hire anyone??? Or do I come out ahead doing the work myself with a one man crew? You think the gov't is paying people on unemployment? I beg to differ. I AM PAYING those people. And so is every other company when we pay unemployment insurance that the gov't requires and sets the rates. ---Gov't is partly responsible for the high cost of labor and thus, partly responsible for companies moving overseas. ---People complain about the abuses in the free market. I respond by saying we should try it sometime. Lanny

Yeah Alba, My B-I-L a Big Time Faux News Republicant...... not quite legally married to his wife, so the kids' medical care is covered by us taxpayers.

twill59 Said: Alba I am telling you...........everyone thinks that they ae Bill Gates and that they have his money, or soon will have. It is an unreal spectacle Bud

My neighbour's 30 year old daughter doesn't like to work because she claims she's "too sick".She applied for a disability check and HUD housing assistance.She started that anti Obama rant the other night screaming "we do not want socialism in this country".I'm like i respect your views lady but what do you think all that stuff that you just applied for is?You hate the government but you want her to take care of you.You claim the government is taking away your freedom but you're gun ho and love the military which is by the way run by the government. It's unreal lazy bums go around talking like they're Bill gates.